1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a hand-held portable cellular telephone, and more particularly to an integrally combined television (TV) and portable cellular phone (hereinafter, referred to as “TV phone”).
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, rapid and widespread use of portable cellular telephones as an ordinary personal communication appliance in society has driven the desire of users toward development of the portable phone with a variety of additional functions besides making simple conversation. For example, portable phones are being developed with a calculating function, a biorhythm checking function, and other functions, including the capability of transmitting/receiving television images as well as a video camera image. The term “TV phone” herein refers to a wireless portable cellular phone, which allows for watching a television (TV) broadcast program through a displaying unit in the portable phone in addition to the capability of cordless telephone conversation.
In order to receive TV broadcasts, a portable phone should be equipped with two radio frequency units. The reason for this is that a frequency bandwidth necessary for transmitting/receiving telephony messages (i.e., audio and data) for the portable phone is different from that for a TV broadcast. The operational status of the portable TV phone is classified into a phone mode, a waiting mode, and a TV mode. The TV mode is also used both as a waiting mode and as an image-receiving mode.
Because the TV phone should allow a user to watch and hear images and audio of a television broadcast program received in the TV mode through the display unit, i.e. a Thin Film Transistor (TFT) Liquid Crystal Display (LCD), and the speaker or earphone of the TV phone, it cannot use the method employed by a general portable phone to inform a user of an incoming call or an incoming character message, while in the TV mode state.
That is, there is no method of immediately informing the user of the occurrence of an incoming call or an incoming character data message when the TV phone is being used to watch and listen to a television broadcast program.
There is therefore a need for a portable TV phone that rapidly and accurately informs a user that there is an incoming call or character data message when the user is viewing a TV broadcast program.
A TV phone is disclosed in Korean Patent Application No. 95-46026, filed on Dec. 1, 1995 (published on Jul. 31, 1997), entitled “A COMBINED TV RECEIVER AND CELLULAR PHONE” of LG Electronics Inc. However, the TV phone in the prior art discloses technology for controlling separately the operations of the transmitter/receiver of the cellular phone and the TV receiver by using only a microprocessor, but no technology for processing a character message such as short message service (SMS). Also, it is impossible to switch the operational mode when an incoming call occurs during the viewing of a TV broadcast program in the TV mode. Accordingly, when an incoming call occurs during the watching of a TV, the transmitter/receiver of a cellular phone is operated separately, thereby increasing consumption of a battery, and causing inconvenience in switching of the operational mode from the TV mode to the phone mode. That is, a user suffers inconvenience having to perform a switching off of a TV and a switchover of the operational mode from the TV mode to the phone mode.